Following the overthrow of the Damascus government by Islamists backed by Ankara, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken informed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday that Syrian civilians must be protected.
Shortly after the Turkish leader greeted Hungary’s populist Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, the senior U.S. diplomat spent over an hour with Erdogan at a lounge at the capital’s airport in Ankara late Thursday.
In a statement, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Blinken “reiterated the importance of all actors in Syria respecting human rights, upholding international humanitarian law, and taking all feasible steps to protect civilians, including members of minority groups.”
Following the turmoil in Syria, where it has been battling a Kurdish-led force that Washington supports as a crucial ally in the war against jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State (IS) organisation, Turkey has highlighted its security concerns.
Syria’s iron-fisted tyrant Bashar al-Assad, a secular-minded member of the minority Alawite sect, was overthrown last weekend by the Islamist organisation Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group after years of impasse.
“The need to ensure the coalition to defeat ISIS (IS) can continue to execute its critical mission” is what Blinken told Erdogan, Miller added.
Speaking before his departure to Turkey on a stop in Jordan, Blinken acknowledged “real and clear interests” by Turkey about the PKK, the Kurdish fighters that Ankara links to Syrian Kurdish guerrillas.
“At the same time, again, we want to avoid sparking any kinds of additional conflicts inside of Syria,” Blinken told reporters in Aqaba, Jordan.
“And part of that also has to be ensuring that ISIS doesn’t rear its ugly head again. And critical to making sure that doesn’t happen is the so-called SDF, the Syrian Democratic Forces, that we’ve been supporting,” he said, referring to the Kurdish-led forces.
Blinken, who leaves office next month following Donald Trump’s election victory, has called for an “inclusive” process to form Syria’s next government, with respect for all communities.
